The Executive Director of Medical Imaging for the Saskatoon Health Region says it wouldn’t have been possible to get new equipment at the Breast Health Centre, certainly not as quickly as they did, without the Saskatoon City Hospital Foundation and its donors. The SHA and the Foundation partnered to bring in a new mammography system with the Foundation funding half of the $500,000 cost.

We told you earlier this week about the announcement of new mammography equipment at the Irene and Leslie Dubé Centre of Care, Breast Heath Centre but now we are talking with Richard Dagenais to find out what this equipment means to the patient and the medical professionals. He says the better imaging is easier for physicians to see some of the things they’re looking for and makes the interpretation process that much more reliable.

This system doesn’t impact the demand for mammography screening because the Breast Health Centre doesn’t do screening but deals with patients who require follow up due to a medical concern. “This equipment is going to let us do something called contrast enhanced mammography which allows us to take pictures of women with certain conditions that currently require an MRI, so that’s quite exciting,” Dagenais explained. He says it will help to lower the wait list for M-R-I’s and for a patient it takes a lot less time than an M-R-I and much more comfortable than an M-R-I and they are hopeful a patient wouldn’t have to come back for another test.

There is a breast assessment unit in Regina with mammography units in other regional hospitals, but Dagenais says at the Breast Health Centre in Saskatoon it is the only site where surgeons, radiologists, laboratory specialists all work together to treat patients who have an identified concern and are worried they may have cancer. He says a similar site should be in place in Regina by the end of the year.